A visual artist by trade and an aficionado of fermentation, Hale, of Twentynine Palms, sought something microscopic and, critically, something that had to find him. All he could do was make a trap. His bait: a golden murky slurry of water and sorghum.

In an effort to try to catch yeast in different places, the author swabbed roses, jasmine, jacaranda and plumeria, placing the swabs in tubes for safe keeping in Long Beach May 18, 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

One method of capturing yeast involves swabbing fruit, flowers or other surfaces for possible yeast. Here a hand swabs a jacaranda blossom in Long Beach on May 18, 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

Brewers looking to wrangle yeast on their own can buy a kit from Bootleg Brewery, which has step-by-step instructions on the different methods of wrangling yeast, pictured here May 18, 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

In order to grow yeast in petri dishes a jelly-like substance needs to fill the plates. Pictured here are 18 grams of agar that will be the platform where yeast grows. Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG

One method of collecting yeast involves taking sterile swabs and dusting fruit and flowers, then putting the collected yeast into tubes filled with wort. The swabs and tube are pictured here May 18, 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

Different zip codes carry different strains of yeast so reporter Lauren Williams is using a kit from Bootlegbiology.com to test what might grow from her own backyard. Williams swabbing roses. Long Beach May 18, 2017. Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG

Wort fills two test tubes that will hopefully contain yeast gathered in Long Beach on May 18, 2017. Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG

Berries plucked from a holly bush are placed in wort and will hopefully grow yeast. This is one of three methods that amateur scientists can use to gather yeast in their backyards. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

A pod from a carrotwood tree could carry yeast, and the seeds from this pod will be added to a liquid to help the yeast grow. May 18, 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

Seeds from a carrotwood tree in Long Beach are placed in wort in a test tube to hopefully propagate yeast. It’s all part of a larger project to gather yeast in every ZIP code of America. May 18, 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

Powder is added to boiling water to create the goo that will fill agar plates, where wild yeast will hopefully grow. It’s part of an effort to gather yeast around the world to make a better beer and better medicine. May 18, 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

Liquid gel is added to petri dishes to help grow yeast in Long Beach May 18, 2017. (Photo by Brittany Murray/SCNG)

Scott Hale brews his own ale and used a wild caught yeast from Joshua Tree to brew what he calls his double wild ale. (Courtesy of Scott Hale)

A carboy filled with sorghum, yeast and water brews while an airlock lets gas escape but not enter the vessel during the fermentation process at Scott Hale’s home. (Courtesy of Scott Hale).

While searching for wild yeast Scott Hale added wild chia from Joshua Tree, which ultimately created a menthol flavor in his beer. (Courtesy Scott Hale)

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After he set out his wheat-colored concoction in a wide-mouth bowl for potential yeast spores at a hunting spot he’d picked in Joshua Tree, Hale set about making his own breakfast — rice, beans and morel mushrooms. Then he waited, hoping the wind would blow a single-celled fungi — one that could create alcohol — his way.

He wanted a one-of-a-kind flavor for his homemade beer.

What he found in the desert would certainly be unique.

Wranglers on a mission

Hale is just one soldier in a fast-growing army, men and women from ZIP codes across America who are willing — in some cases eager — to work as amateur scientists and yeast wranglers in the bigger mission of creating better craft beer.

To understand this, you need some background.

First, yeast is a natural fungi, a single-celled organisms ferried by breeze or gale from one sugary home to another. (That white stuff that covers grapes in your fridge? That’s yeast.) Also, yeast is pretty much everywhere; you’re probably breathing some yeast as you read this, and some some yeast almost certainly is inside you, assisting your digestion.

But not all yeast is brewer’s yeast, the stuff that’s good for making beer. Most brewers’ yeast in use by commercial breweries traces back to Belgium, Germany and England, places with strong beer making traditions. These domesticated yeasts produce consistent beer, but consistency can sometimes mean uninteresting. Capturing wild yeast involves exposing beer to the elements as brewers did in Europe for generations.

Second, makers of craft beer are engaged in something of an arms race, every brewer seeking the freshest, most local, and, oftentimes, the most unusual ingredients. Nothing fits that bill better than local, wild yeast.

In 2013, Rogue Ales, of Newport, Ore., released a beer brewed with the yeast cultured from nine hairs from the brew master’s beard. Disgusting? Perhaps. But the company called it Beard Beer and it garnered decent to strong ratings from beer critics. And it epitomized the trend for unusual ingredients.

This arms race has even reached hobbyists. Local brewers — people making five-gallon batches — recently have taken up sterile swabs and Petri dishes in an effort to wrangle their own yeast strains.

At about the time the Rogue brewer was experimenting with his beard, a political scientist and beer lover, Jeff Mello, isolated his first yeast strain, S. arlingtonesis, named after his then home in Arlington, Va. He soon would go on to wrangle yeast while hiking in the Portuguese Azores with his wife and on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. He also would leave the world of non-profit fundraising, move to Tennessee and pursue his passion for unique beer.

Today, Mello runs Bootleg Biology, an open source scientific project aimed at gathering beer-friendly yeast strains from every corner of the world. To date, the project has received some 200 entries, including seven from California and others from as far as Italy, Costa Rica and Thailand. Yeasts are sampled from plants as diverse as honeysuckle, wild Thai peppers, tomatoes and persimmons.

Mello said he sells nine yeast strains that he’s collected – including his explosively tropical arlingtonesis — but the rest are cataloged and used by scientists.

Tyler Tennyson, a friend of Mello’s, isolated the yeast S. boulardii on a chardonnay grape at the Gordon Brothers winery in Washington state where he worked as the head winemaker. Tennyson used that yeast in two barrels of chardonnay and created a totally local wine, imparted with a rustic earthy flavor and a range of fruity flavors. (As it so happens, S. boulardii is also used for stomach ailments).

The yeast offered a great taste and, Tennyson added, a great story.

“It’s a huge selling point because from soup to nuts it’s ours.”

Others interested in hyper-local tastes (and stories), including Cerebral Brewing in Denver and Hourglass Brewery outside Orlando, Fla. track down local yeast strains for their beer.

The wrangling isn’t tricky, but it can look funky. The liquid is brown and murky; the spores white and fuzzy.

Mello insists he is more beer lover than scientist.

“If I can do this … then anyone who can make beer can do this.”

He’s also ambitious. Mello thinks his lab could gather one unique yeast strain from every ZIP code of America.

Others — including scientists — think such yeast diversity could create something unique. And it could have implications beyond making better beer and wine.

“Every region, every city, every neighborhood has a particular microbiome, you could say,” said Katy Hall, lab manager who specializes in fermentation for Golden Road Brewing in Los Angeles and Anaheim.

Hall added that she has wrangled yeast strain for Mello’s library.

Mello partnered with geneticists at the University of Washington’s Yeast Resource Center who are studying yeast to better understand how different human bodies interact with medication to improve dosage.

Maitreya Dunham, an associate professor of genome sciences at the center, found that a particular strain of yeast sent to her lab by an amateur produced protein better than a strain engineered in a lab. The yeast in question came from the Japanese rice wine sake. She said it will be used in her lab to explore mutations in human genes.

This research, Dunham hopes, will speed up the process in finding more accurate doses of medication for patients and answer some fundamental biology questions.

Acquired tastes

On that May morning in Joshua Tree Hale couldn’t know whether his slurry did or didn’t catch a strain of yeast capable of making beer. After an hour exposed to the elements he combined the liquid from the bowl with a similar concoction in a Crystal Geyser gallon jug. Then he added wild chia, yucca fruit and blossoms found in the desert and he drove back to his home in West Los Angeles.

Overnight, his jug ballooned into a round ball. The fermentation process had begun.

“It expanded to the point where it was going to pop,” Hale said. “It just smelled wild and crazy and gaseous.”

After weeks of fermenting Hale created what he called Double Wild Ale, the name reflecting his use of native flora and yeast. He captured his first sip of the hazy straw-colored brew on camera. While aromatic and flora in smell, the beer tasted strongly medicinal, with menthol flavor reminiscent of wild grass, soap and Vicks Vap-O-Rub.

Hale spit that sip immediately. He attributed the menthol flavor to the chia he threw in the beer before fermentation.

“It’s definitely a novelty,” he said.

But Hale is undeterred. He likens his love of his wild-caught yeast to a gardener’s love of heirloom tomatoes.

“I would definitely make more beer with it just for the simple fact that it works,” he said. “It’s just as much art and science as it is food… The microbes are doing all the work and you’re just creating situations where happy accidents happen.””

A native of California, Lauren attended Cal State Long Beach where she majored in journalism and political science. She briefly lived in Santiago, Chile where she edited an online magazine and worked as a translator for doctors from Malaysia following Chile's 8.8 earthquake in 2010. Lauren moved back to the states in 2011 and now lives in Long Beach. A runner, rock climber and board game enthusiast, Lauren is perpetually training for the next race day.

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